House Speaker Mike Johnson won’t seek a leadership post in the next Congress, he told House Republicans in a letter Wednesday, Nov. 4, after Democrats won the House majority in Tuesday’s midterms. “After much prayer and thoughtful consideration, I have decided that I will not be a candidate for a leadership position in the 120th Congress,” Johnson wrote in the letter, which Newsweek published.
He keeps the gavel until the new Congress elects a speaker on Jan. 3, 2027, and he’s expected to stay on as a rank-and-file House member, The Associated Press reported. “Serving as your Speaker has been the greatest professional honor of my life,” Johnson wrote.
The Louisiana Republican, who won a sixth term Tuesday in his Shreveport-area district according to AP results, said he wants more time with his family. “I believe the time has come for me to give them more of the attention and presence they so richly deserve,” he wrote.
His LGBTQ+ record goes back more than two decades, to his years as a lawyer and spokesman for the Alliance Defense Fund, now called Alliance Defending Freedom. “Society cannot give its stamp of approval to such a dangerous lifestyle,” he wrote in a 2004 newspaper column that CNN’s KFile unearthed in 2023.
What Mike Johnson and Republicans Said After the House Flipped
“I’m disappointed, too, but we are never discouraged,” Johnson told supporters on election night, according to Newsweek.
His statement on the results took aim at the incoming majority. “This Democrat House majority will be led by the most radical and extreme leftists in American history,” Johnson said, according to Roll Call.
Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., aimed a social media post at his party’s leaders in both chambers, Roll Call reported. “The polls were not wrong. You were,” Steube wrote. “Please do us all a favor and step aside so new leadership can take a truly conservative direction.”
Johnson has been speaker since October 2023. “I make this decision with a heart full of gratitude and an abiding sense of pride in what we have accomplished together,” he wrote.
His Shreveport Columns Against Lawrence v. Texas and Gay Marriage
Johnson attacked Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Bowers v. Hardwick, in a July 2003 op-ed, after ADF had filed a brief in the case backing laws that criminalized gay sex, CNN reported. “States have many legitimate grounds to proscribe same-sex deviate sexual intercourse,” Johnson wrote.
“By closing these bedroom doors, they have opened a Pandora’s box,” he added.
His 2004 columns turned to same-sex marriage. “If we change marriage for this tiny, modern minority, we will have to do it for every deviant group,” he wrote.
Another column rejected comparing sexual orientation with race. “Your race, creed, and sex are what you are, while homosexuality and cross-dressing are things you do,” Johnson wrote.
Fox News host Sean Hannity asked him about the columns in October 2023. “I don’t even remember some of them,” Johnson said. He told Hannity he loves all people “regardless of their lifestyle choices.”
How Mike Johnson Voted on the Respect for Marriage Act
Johnson voted no both times the Respect for Marriage Act passed the House in 2022, by 267-157 on July 19 and 258-169 on Dec. 8, House roll calls show. “I was a litigator that was called upon to defend the state marriage amendments,” he told Hannity, describing his legal career. (Virginia voters threw out their 2006 marriage ban on Tuesday.)
That October, he introduced the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act, a bill CNN said some describe as a national version of what critics call Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. It would have blocked federal funds for sexually oriented programs, events or literature for children under 10, and its definition of “sexually oriented material” included “any topic involving gender identity, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation, or related subjects.”
Sarah McBride, the Capitol Restroom Rule and Trans Care Limits
Two weeks after Delaware elected Democrat Sarah McBride to the House in 2024, Johnson announced that single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House office buildings “are reserved for individuals of that biological sex,” The Washington Post reported. “Women deserve women’s only spaces,” Johnson said.
McBride had told the 2016 Democratic National Convention, “Four years ago, I came out as transgender while serving as student body president in college,” CBS New York reported. McBride answered Johnson’s rule the same day, ABC News reported. “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families,” McBride said.
She also said, “Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them.” (Her path to Congress is the subject of the documentary “State of Firsts.”)
That December, Johnson added a provision to the annual defense bill as a concession to the most conservative members, according to lawmakers from both parties, Roll Call reported. It barred Tricare from covering treatments for gender dysphoria in minors that “could result in sterilization,” Military.com reported. “We banned Tricare from prescribing treatments that would ultimately sterilize our kids,” Johnson said at a news conference.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, objected. “We have an outright ban on care that undoubtedly is saving lives of minors experiencing gender dysphoria,” Smith said, according to Roll Call.
President Joe Biden signed the bill that month, saying the provision “targets a group based on that group’s gender identity.”
Scalise or Jordan? House GOP Picks Johnson’s Successor Nov. 10
House Republicans are scheduled to elect their leaders for the new Congress on Nov. 10, NBC News reported. Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio both announced bids for minority leader in letters Wednesday, and Scalise wrote colleagues that “the election was far worse than any of us expected,” AP reported.
Jordan, who voted against the Respect for Marriage Act both times in 2022, as Scalise did, pitched his oversight record. “I am battle-tested on the oversight front and I know the Democrats’ playbook,” he wrote, according to Fox News, as cited by People.
Further down the ballot, Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota faces Republican Study Committee Chair August Pfluger of Texas, and Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan faces Steube and Rep. Erin Houchin of Indiana, The Hill reported Friday. Emmer voted for the Respect for Marriage Act both times, the roll calls show, while Pfluger, McClain and Steube voted no. Houchin joined the House in 2023.
“We’ll stay out of it,” President Donald Trump said of the race Wednesday, CBS News reported. He said Johnson “was fantastic.”
Democrats, who’ll control both chambers in January, are preparing to nominate Hakeem Jeffries of New York for speaker, AP reported. Jeffries formally asked colleagues for their support in a letter Wednesday, and House Democrats hold their leadership elections Nov. 18, ABC News reported.
